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Friday, August 26, 2011

Meaningful First Week Activities

The first week of school generally consists of getting to know one another, in addition to discussion and practice of classroom procedures and routines. We also got our creative juices flowing by creating summer reflection writing pieces, squiggle stories, and "All About Me" mini-posters. Students are getting to know one another and me, and we are learning to work together to build a successful and positive classroom environment.

On Wednesday, I wrote out six questions, all having to do with how to make our classroom and ourselves function to the highest level, on six pieces of chart paper. Students, in groups of three, spent two minutes at each chart, collaborating and responding to each question on a sticky note. After all groups visited each chart paper station, I hung all of the charts up and we discussed each answer and noticed some very interesting trends. Here's the finished product, which you can click on to enlarge:

To tie into the previous activity, I was inspired by my wonderful teammates, Mrs. Fadden and Ms. Mattox, to develop at class pledge with my students. We reviewed our responses to the above questions, and then we put all of the ideas together to form a cohesive paragraph that we have all agreed will help us to remember why we are here at school and what our common goal is. Below is the rough draft of our class pledge (which I will type up, make pretty, and have all of my students sign):

Since we were able to develop a class goal (to achieve success in third grade), I also had each student determine an individual goal after reading the story Matthew's Dream by Leo Lionni. I displayed our "Hopes and Dreams" for third grade near the classroom door, so that we can refer to, and revisit, them throughout the year. Lots of students are interested in learning how to sharpen their cursive skills, multiplication and division skills. I was very impressed by the number of students ready to take on our 40 book challenge! More on that later! Here's our class display of our hopes and dreams for third grade:

Lastly, I read a book called Have You Filled a Bucket Today? The premise is that everyone carries an invisible bucket everywhere they go. When your bucket is "filled" you feel happy.When your bucket is "empty" you feel sad or upset. People can fill buckets by lending a helping hand, smiling, being kind, including others in games, and more. People can empty buckets by teasing, being ungrateful, acting disrespectfully, and more. I encourage my students to recognize the actions of bucket-fillers by writing them quick note and sticking it in their bucket display. This helps make everyone feel good. When we feel good, we want others to feel good. Therefore, kindess is passed from person to person. This is our bucket-filling display, complete with ways we can fill buckets and ways we can empty buckets:

I look forward to more of these types of meaningful activities that promote teamwork, kindness, and achievement with your child!

"What should kids in our class be doing to make sure our class runs as *smoothLY* as possible. The adverb is dying. It makes me sad to know that teachers are contributing to the problem. :( That being said, at least you can spell. One of my former classmates is a 6th grade Language Arts teacher, and she posted a facebook status using 'hungary' when she meant 'hungry.' :-/

Hmmm...It makes me sad that instead of highlighting everything that this wonderful teacher is doing right, that someone would take this opportunity to only highlight an insignificant error that had no effect on the legibility or intent of the activity. As a teacher myself, I only hope that people will remember a little humility and that we teachers never professed to be perfect.

If only we could teach our children to see the good in others and skim over the unimportant things, this world would be a much more loving environment. Some of the comments make me stop to ponder why they were posted. Perhaps guilt for not being this kind of teacher?

Thank you for your wonderful ideas. I will be teaching fourth grade this year and I LOVE the idea of students contributing and thining for themselves, in regards to chart paper activity. I am definantly going to try this out! Keep posting - your blog is WONDERFUL! :)

Thanks for asking! The poster to the right of the buckets is a simple student generated t-chart. On one side it says, "Make a list of ways to fill buckets" and on the other side it says, "Make a list of ways that dip into buckets." I found it through the original bucket filling website, but I have a copy saved on my computer and would be happy to email it to you if you would like. : )

Mrs. Robinson,I liked your idea SO MUCH it is one of the first things I ever pinned on my "Back to School" board on Pinterest. I plan to use this idea the first day of school. I took the questions from your chart papers, modified them slightly (I teach grade 6 gifted...thus the "characteristics of a teacher" modification) and created posters. If you would like a copy of them for your own use...you did inspire me...or if anyone else would like a FREE copy...please come and visit me at http://teachingisagift.blogspot.ca!

I did a bucket filling activity similar to yours last year. I love the t-chart idea!!! I would love to add it to my repetoir!! I am also going yo do the 6 charts with stickies!! Thanks for sharing ;)I would also love a copy of the t- chart if it is not too much trouble. Can't wait to see more of your ideas.soycruzer@yahoo.com

These are such wonderful ideas! I teach 2nd grade and will be using them this year for sure! I would love if you could email me a copy of the t-chart as well and if you do have the bucket that would be very helpful. Thanks so much for sharif such great ideas!

These are great ideas! I teach 2nd grade and will be using them this year for sure! I would appreciate it if you could email me a copy of the t-chart as well as the bucket if you have it. Thanks so much for sharing!

Thank you for posting this. We have already made plans to use this activity at the beginning of the year. Yes we saw the grammatical error, just quietly corrected it on our posters (yes they are ready). I love all of these activities which ask students to think about their own learning, and then take responsibility for it. They should be thinking for themselves!!

Thanks for sharing! We need this in 6th grade!!!!! Oh and I'm actually the world's worst speller, even with spell check. I'm a sixth grade science teacher and I ask my students to see who can find the most errors. They think I'm cool because I'm not perfect....

I love this idea! I'm going from teaching high school to teaching grade 3 and looking for ideas to do with my students the first week or two. Would love a copy of the T-chart if possible. Also, what did you have students do on their buckets?? Did they just color them?? Or did they have to write something nice they have done for someone else?? I would love any other ideas/tips of what to do for the first week of school...so very nervous...different to high school. Thanks in Advance! my e-mail is whocares_16@hotmail.com